save me

[hartmans]

Aaargh. My father watches Fox News. All the time! I had no idea how bad TV news could be.

Comments

[tla]

Yes, yes I entirely share your pain on this one. I just made a stated policy of changing the channel unless it's talking about the weather.

(Of course, this visit Mom's had the TV on all Christmas specials, all the time.)

[avacon.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that CNN is sometimes almost as bad...
(For example, when they dive into coverage of Scott Peterson
or Coby Bryant or something similar for hours on-end.)
Luckily my parents have a strong aversion to Fox News
(coming from a strongly Democratic county near San Francisco
that had around 90% voter turn-out in this past election).

[lasofia.livejournal.com]

oh NO! you poor boy. Do you offer commentary?

[sheilagh.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this is out on video, yet, but I've heard really good reviews on it:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0418038

[hartmans]

It's hard to not offer commentary with great feature articles like an
explanation of why there have been no terrorist attacks this year. Apparently it is luck, but if we adopt an intelicon.org plan to link all intelligence/law enforcement computers so the state trooper stopping you for a traffic violation can figure out if you are a suspected terrorist, we'll be safer. This was all more important than the earthquake coverage. O, yeah, we care about the earthquake because a bunch of western tourists might have been killed.

[jered]

Does he believe what he sees on it, too?

The last time I saw Fox News was in a restaurant about two weeks ago; reading the captioning for "Scarborough Country", and I didn't believe what I saw until it was on The Daily Show the next day.

William Donahue, president of The Catholic League, was honestly saying things like, "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK?" and, "Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes."

[ckd]

It could be worse. Last time my parents came to visit us, my dad was asking what channel it was on. I'd already removed it from the channel list, and almost turned on the "parental lockout" feature...though I don't think "locking your parent out" is what the term is supposed to mean.

[hartmans]

Well, honestly I think a reasonable fraction of Hollywood does in fact like anal sex—or really any kind of sex to tell the truth. I don't know how much he believes; he is intelligent but tends to like the current government. We try and avoid politics.

[brandyeileen.livejournal.com]

I disagree, I think I would use that feature exclusively for locking out parents. My mother has the worst taste in tv, she loves soap operas and Oprah. I am thankful that my dad and stepmom watch more infotelevision, than anything else, and they stick to real infotv, instead of Food Network. I'm so tired of Food Network. I think there's something a bit wrong with any station that shows you food constantly, as if America wasn't overweight enough. *sigh*

/rant

[ocschwar.livejournal.com]

It's now been seven visits in a row to my mother where the damn TV was off completely. I am definitely counting this among my blessings.